“I have respect for him (Biti) for his
intellectual prowess. Let me say that he is very clever,” Chinamasa told
journalists at Zanu PF headquarters in Harare Monday.
“But there you have him doing the
bidding for his masters very well where he wrote to the World Bank not to give
us Covid-19 related finances and resources and we have not received such
resources.
“Zanu PF, therefore, appeals to our
people not to be misled by the MDC Alliance malcontents whose preoccupation is
to see our people and the economy suffer.”
Chinamasa should know that Zanu PF
cannot have its cake and eat it too! He only showered Tendai Biti with praise
for the purpose of building Biti as a credible opposition whose words would have
influence IMF. The truth is Tendai Biti is a corrupt, incompetent and overrated
opposition politician with a well-documented track record of failures. He has
no intellectual or political credibility and no political influence. Of all the
people, Patrick Chinamasa should know this since he played the leading role in
celebrating Biti and his MDC’s friends’ breath-taking incompetence at the end
of the 2008 GNU! record better than anyone else.
The IMF, WB and many other
international financial institutions stopped giving Zimbabwe financial assistance
back in the late 1999 when it was clear the country was failing to service’s mounting
debt. Zimbabwe’s reputation as a pariah state ruled by corrupt, incompetent and
vote rigging thugs have forced investors and lenders alike to shy away from
doing business with the country. It is therefore rich to blame the WB’s recent
decision to deny Zimbabwe financial assistance on Tendai Biti.
Chinamasa knows that Tendai Biti is
not clever at all! If Biti or anyone of his follow MDC leaders had even the
common sense of a village idiot then they would have implemented at least one
democratic reform during the 2008 to 2013 GNU. Not even the repeated nagging by
SADC leaders to implement the reforms could get the MDC leaders to anything.
Of course, Patrick Chinamasa joined
his leader, Robert Mugabe, and all the other Zanu PF leaders in celebrating their
party’s greatest political revivals. Having signed the 2008 Global Political
Agreement, agreeing to the implementation of the raft of democratic reforms
designed to dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship; no one would have believed Zanu
PF would emerge at the end of the GNU with all its dictatorial powers untouched!
No one!
When SADC leaders tried a last minute
attempt to have the 2013 elections postponed to allow for the reforms to be
implemented; it was Chinamasa himself, as then Minister of Justice, who
reminded the diplomats that elections could not be postponed to allow reforms
when no reforms proposals had ever been submitted in the five years of the GNU.
It was MDC’s, not Zanu PF’s, fault that not even one reform proposal had been submitted.
Chinamasa and his Zanu PF cronies
celebrated Tendai Biti and his MDC friends’ breath-taking incompetence in
failing to submit even one token reform proposal in five years of the GNU. Chinamasa
said nothing about respecting Biti’s “intellectual prowess” then!
Zanu PF’s contempt for the opposition
is malicious, so malicious the party has stripped all its political opponents
of their freedoms, rights and humanity. And all the ordinary Zimbabweans who
have dared support the oppositions have been cloaked in the opposition’s colours
and in turn stripped of their freedoms, etc.
“Zanu PF’s relationship with the
people is watered with blood, it is unshakable. The party and its leadership
will never allow this to happen. We will never allow any malcontents to take
over this country,” Chinamasa fumed.
Since granting the ordinary people
their right to free, fair and credible elections could resulted in election “malcontent
opposition” it is therefore clear why Zanu PF has never ever allowed the people
to exercise a free and democratic vote.
Zimbabwe has gone from a middle-income
nation in 1980 with a robust and promising economy to one of the poorest nations
today. Four decades of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption has left the
country in economic ruins with unemployment a nauseating 90% and 34% of the
people now living in abject poverty.
The nation has been stuck with the
corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF regime for all these 40 years because the party
rigged the elections to stop the people removing its leaders from office.
The right to a meaningful say in the
governance of one’s country is a birth right, a universal right acknowledged in
the UN Universal Human Rights. In Zimbabwe the right to free elections is now
more that just a right, it is the only way the nation has to end the criminal
worse of the country’s material resources that has left millions in abject
poverty and hopelessness and despair.
After four decades of being denying one’s
freedoms and rights, of being treated like a malcontent with no meaningful say
in the governance of the country, of being forced into a life of hopelessness
and despair; it is high time the people of Zimbabwe stood up to Zanu PF and
reclaimed their rights and humanity!
The people of Zimbabwe must stand-up
to this Zanu PF dictatorship and demand their right to a meaningful say in the
governance of the country. The people must reject continued denial of their
freedoms and rights under the nonsensical guise an unshakable “Zanu PF’s
relationship with the people is watered with blood!”
Zanu PF does not have a divine or
otherwise right to govern the country. The right to govern the country must be
derive from the people of Zimbabwe in a free, fair and credible elections and
not other source.
Zanu PF failed to hold free, fair and
credible elections in July 2018, the party has no mandate to govern, the regime
is illegitimate and must step down. After 40 years of holding this nation to ransom,
enough is enough. Zanu PF must step down and no amount of Zanu PF threats will deter
the nation from demanding change.
14 comments:
Sikhala allegedly went into hiding soon after the arrest of July 31 protests organiser and opposition Transform Zimbabwe leader Jacob Ngarivhume as well as journalist Hopewell Chin'ono for allegedly inciting violence ahead of the protests.
Meanwhile, at least 14 political activists, including MDC-Alliance deputy chair Job Sikhala and Amalgamated Rural Teachers' Union of Zimbabwe president Obert Masaraure, are on the police wanted list over unspecified reasons.
Others who are on the run are MDC Alliance member Makomborero Haruziviishe, MDC-Alliance national youth organiser Godfrey Kurauone, MDC youth secretary general Ostallos Siziba, Tajamuka/ Sesijikile leader Promise Mkwananzi, former MDC-Alliance City of Harare councillor Denford Ngadziore, MDC-Alliance official Allan Moyo and MDC-Alliance youth leader Obey Sithole.
National Patriotic Front official Jimmy Kunaka, Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions president Peter Mutasa, ARTUZ secretary-general Robson Chere, MDC-Alliance youth spokesperson Stephen Chuma and Godfrey Tsenengamu, leader of a pressure group called Front for Economic Emancipation in Zimbabwe.
The US Embassy in Harare has reportedly pumped in US$300 000, with each ordinary demonstrator set to pocket US$20 for participating, while the organisers will get much more for their 'bravery'.
The country's worsening economic situation means there will be lots of very angry people out there and the protest will not be peaceful which is exactly what Zanu PF wants to justify its brutal use of force!
Assistant Secretary for U.S. Department of State's Bureau of African Affairs Tibor Nagy says the American government has summoned Zimbabwe's ambassador to the United States Ammon Machingambi Mutembwa over the statement made by ZANU PF Acting Spokesperson Patrick Chinamasa on Monday.
Chinamasa called U.S. ambassador to Harare, Brian Nichols a thug and accused him of funding the opposition ahead of this week's planned anti-government protests that authorities say are meant to overthrow the government.
Chinamasa had told journalists that, "He (Nichols) continues to engage in acts of undermining this republic and if he does so, if he continues engaging in acts of mobilizing and funding disturbances, coordinating violence and training insurgents, our leadership will not hesitate to give him marching orders.
"Diplomats should not behave like thugs, and Brian Nichols is a thug."
Zanu PF knows that the country's worsening economic situation means its strangle hold on power is weakening because the economnic mess is making the people restless for real change. There is no doubt that change is coming.
@ Chere
Corruption, poverty and dictatorship are the causes. Not me. Let them address those issues and there will be no demonstration.
May the ancestors of the revolution guide us on the 31st of July as we make our position clear.
Aluta continua.
The over simplistic take of some people on complex matters is not helping us get out of the mess we are in.
Zanu PF blatantly rigged the July 2018 elections, the regime did not even bother to produce something as basic as a verified voters' roll and it was all water off a duck's back. And yet the some individuals are now itching for a fights with Zanu PF over corruption. So they think they are on firm ground fight the regime in the street that they are fighting for their right to a meaningful vote!
Former Commander of the notorious Fifth Brigade, Retired Air Marshall Perrance Shiri has died.
Shiri was admitted to a private hospital on Tuesday battling with Coronavirus symptoms.
Death cometh to us all but to those who denied others their freedoms, rights and human dignity their departure leaves bitterness and anger in their victims for now being denied justice too.
The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe's former subsidiary, Fiscorp, which handled the Farm Mechanisation Programme between 2007 and 2008, has challenged former legislator, Mr Kudakwashe Bhasikiti and self-exiled former Cabinet minister Mr Saviour Kasukuwere, to prove that they repaid the loans through which they received equipment under the scheme.
It also emerged that Mr Kasukuwere got an assortment of farm implements and not just two tractors that he claimed to have paid for.
This comes as former RBZ Governor, Dr Gideon Gono, has set the record straight to say the programme was not corrupt.
Responding to earlier claims by United Kingdom-based commentator, Dr Alex Magaisa, Dr Gono said last week that the programme, which was carried out during a difficult period, started as a loan and was later changed to a grant after the then Government of National Unity had approved the switch.
And yesterday, former Fiscorp chief executive Mr Mathews Kunaka said no beneficiary was invoiced to repay the equipment and challenged Mr Kasukuwere and Mr Bhasikiti to provide details showing their repayments
It also emerged that the equipment that Mr Bhasikiti received was worth US$43 496 and he should have paid $217,5 trillion and not $10 billion given the prevailing exchange rate at the time. Contrary to Mr Kasukuwere's claims that he paid for his two tractors, The Herald is reliably informed that he got an assortment of farm equipment valued at US$159 208.
Some of the implements Mr Kasukuwere got included a disc harrow T12 (US$13 253), Massey Ferguson tractor (US$42 450), Disc plough (US$8 700), a four-wheel drive tractor (US$24 000), Sprayer Gaspardo (US$16 118), Boom sprayer (US$5 967), Generator 30 KVA (US$5 200), Three disc plough CMEC US$8 200 and a Case tractor (US$35 320.)
The real big story here is Magaisa’s lie that the 2007 to 2008 Farm Mechanisation Programme was a one-off corruption scheme and that only Zanu PF leaders benefited from the rampant corruption.
There have been multiple looting schemes dating back to such schemes as the Willowvale Motor Scandal, the War Veteran Compensation, the wholesale diamond looting in Marange and Chiadzwa, the Command Agriculture Schemes, etc., etc. Magaisa knows that MDC leaders benefited from these looting schemes including his former boss Morgan Tsvangirai who got the US$4 million Highlands mansion through one such scheme.
It is only when you see the full scale of the looting by the ruling elite that one can see why they were all of one accord – they would rather rig elections and even kill than lose their position on the feeding trough. After being allow to take up their position on the feeding trough, MDC leaders were convinced they were now life-time members of the ruling elite and forgot about implementing the democratic reforms undermining the ruling elite’s claim to absolute power.
@ Danmore Sithole
The prominent UK academic Frances Stewart says the political voice often is channelled in ways that are more contentious, and disruptive. Hence the July 31 protests are such an attractive option.
You can often tell a lot from what one eats and living habits. For example, a sloth spends 18 hours a day fast asleep. In the few hours it is awake it will munch a few fibrous leaves; whatever is within easy reach, can’t be bothered searching for fresh leaves much less the tasty fruit. It is little wonder the sloth is half-died with the shaggiest coat ever.
The is no doubt that Zimbabwe is in a serious economic and political mess, one that has lasted 40 years and counting. It is easy to see why the country is in the mess and, worse still, it is hopelessly stuck and cannot get out – the people are brain-dead. Give a Zimbabwean a choice and 99.9% of them will make the wrong choice again and again and again with insane regularity!
In the late 1990s, Zimbabweans finally came to the conclusion that Zanu PF was a corrupt, vote rigging and tyrannical regime; after 20 years of agonising over the matter, regardless of all the evidence of the economic collapse, the 1983 to 1987 Gukurahundi massacre, etc. Over the last 20 and counting, the nation has had a multitude of solutions, to pick and choose, on how to end the Zanu PF dictatorship. The courses of action we chose spoke volumes of who we are.
The nation has had many golden opportunities to implement the democratic reforms, especially during the GNU, and dismantle the dictatorship but wasted them all. Even when this was explained to the people a thousand times, no one seemed to care.
Talk of street protest, military coup and many people come alive. Why anyone believes that violence is the only solution to Zimbabwe’s political crisis beggars belief! The country’s war of independence ended white colonial oppression but only to replace it with black oppression. Why some many people cannot grasp this simple the political reality, even now with the benefit of hindsight, is proof they are many out there who are brain-dead.
You can glorify the street protests all you want but that will never change the political reality that only a fool would choose street protests over implementing the reforms!
@ Nomazulu Thata
It is a great pity that in 40 years and counting we have failed to end the corrupt and murderous Zanu PF dictatorship. We have many, many golden opportunities to do this, especially during the 2008 to 2013 GNU, but wasted every one of these chances. The consequence of our failure is that many of the regime’s thugs are dying before they face justice and some giving credence to their boasting that they will get away with the looting, raping, beating and murders!
The signs are, Zanu PF is not going to implement even one meaningful democratic reform before the 2023 elections the opposition will participate in the flawed elections giving the vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy. Chamisa will participate in the 2023 elections just like the rest in the opposition, his recent promise “to stop the 2023 election if there are no reforms” is just another one of these MDC leaders’ theatrical nonsense.
It is a crying shame that 40 years after independence, 2 500 years after the Greeks gave the world democracy, we in Zimbabwe are still failing to hold free, fair and credible elections. And so corrupt and murderous thugs like Perrence Shiri are going to their graves without ever facing justice.
It is said the wheels of justice turn slowly but they turn! In the case of Zimbabwe, it is clear the wheel of justice fallen off a long time ago, Mugabe and his cronies saw to that!
Poor Zimbabwe, for all its boasting as one of the most literate nation in Africa with the highest number of university graduate, PhD, Professors, etc. per capita; it does not have even a handful of citizens with the common sense to end the Zanu PF dictatorship even after 40 years! Poor, poor Zimbabwe!
Former 5th Brigade Commander Perrance Shiri has been buried at the National Shrine. His burial was attended by very few people who observed social distance in accordance with the World Health Organisation standards.
He had tested positive of Coronavirus.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa presided over the burial.
Of course, Perrance Shiri was tested for corona virus and all those who attended the funeral were very carefully tested and screened. Mnangagwa and other senior Zanu PF leaders were going to attend the funeral and every practical step possible to ensure they do not get the virus were taken.
If Perrance Shiri was just an ordinary Zimbabweans, the regime would have assumed he died of something else and not covid-19. Indeed, even if he had shown all the corona virus symptoms and regime would have made no effort to have him tested. None!
Even big referral Hospitals like Parerinyatwa and Mpilo are having to beg the regime to allow them to have mandatory covid-19 testing of patients even this late into the corona virus outbreak.
“For the period 9 June 2020 when the centre opened up to 25 July 2020, 60 Covid-19 positive patients have been admitted,” authorities at Parirenyatwa Hospital told a New Zimbabwe.
“For the period under review, 70 staff members have tested positive for Covid-19, of which 64 are from non-Covid-19 areas while 6 work directly in the Covid Centre.”
The Hospital was asking for permission and the resources to test patients in the non-covid-19 areas!
No doubt hundreds of thousands of health care workers, patients and ordinary Zimbabweans out there will catch the virus and many will die all because the relevant authority would not carry out a US$4 test! The regime is more concerned about keeping the official corona virus cases and death as low as possible then saving lives by telling the people truth. When it is the ruling elite’s lives at risk then every precaution is taken, of course!
Abednico Mwembe
One can give a short answer and it is good, a long answer and it is also good. The reverse is also equally true. And so the length of an article, comment, etc. is not going to tell us anything about quality! Same can be said about age, gender, tribe, race, political party affiliation, etc., etc., But of course if you are a village idiot like you to whom quality means nothing then length, age, etc. become the only yardstick to measure things!
Zimbabwe is in this mess because we have more than our fair share of village idiots, you!
Fifty-three people have so far succumbed to Covid-19, although 924 have recovered from the disease, an update released by the Ministry of Health and Child Care last night shows.
"Today (yesterday), we report the results of 12 deaths which occurred from July 13 to 20, 2020 in the community and on admission to casualty departments at Parirenyatwa and Sally Mugabe hospitals after investigations and post-mortem were done. "These include nine males and two females all from Harare and had respiratory symptoms. Their PCR tests came out positive. The death from Midlands Province is of a male aged 58," said the Ministry of Health.
Yesterday, 213 cases tested positive with 205 being local transmissions and eight being returnees from South Africa. This saw the total number of confirmed cases jumping to 3 092 since March 20 when Covid-19 broke out in Zimbabwe.
A cumulative 129 899 tests have been done so far.
On the 10 July 2020 the country had done 86 212 tests and so has done and additional 43 687 tests in the last 20 days and so Zimbabwe has been doing 2 184 tests a day, up from 1 000 test per day target since early April. This is simply not good enough.
Corona virus lockdown are effective in contain hotspots but without first identifying the hotspots lockdowns are just a shot in the dark!
Why is Zimbabwe not testing all covid-19 suspects visiting our clinics and hospitals?
This government is not testing as aggressively as it should because all it cares about is keeping the country’s corona virus cases and death figures low and thus give the impression the regime has done an excellent job containing the virus. Hundreds of thousands of lives are being sacrificed for the sake of political expedience!
ZIMBABWE National Army (ZNA) spokesperson Colonel Overson Mugwisi has died from Covid-19.
A family member of the Mugwisi family who confirmed his death on condition of anonymity said the decorated soldier died in the wee hours of Friday.
He has been on sick leave for about three months.
The family source said Mugwisi died at an Army hospital at the Josiah Magama Tongogara Barracks, formerly KGV1 Barracks in Harare where he was rushed to overnight after the family failed to have him admitted at both private and public hospitals.
For months now, Zimbabwe has falsified the seriousness of the spreading corona virus. Hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans have gone on with the lives blissfully unaware that corona virus was spreading in their midst.
Zanu PF is a corrupt and incompetent regime, after 40 years of misrule the regime is not under any illusions that it is anything but competent, and it is no surprise the regime has always been obsessed about sprucing up its image cost all cost. What the regime is doing is making sure that the corona virus figures are kept as low as possible to give the impression the regime has done an excellent job of containing the virus.
The price of falsifying the corona virus is many, many Zimbabweans have been blissfully unaware of the virus spreading. Many will catch the virus and many will die! This is a totally unacceptable high price for the nation to pay for political vanity! Zanu PF’s blundering incompetence is going to cause many people to lose their lives and it is will be unforgivable for us to let this madness continue!
Corona virus is killing more innocent Zimbabweans than the ruling elite! The testing, tracing and tracking among the ruling elite is done thoroughly and efficiently, for example, whilst very few tests are carried out among the poor. The poor are dying of ignorance and neglect!
FORMER Premier Soccer League chief executive, Chris Sambo has died from coronavirus, aged 69.
A family source revealed to NewZimbabwe.com Sambo had contracted the world pandemic.
The veteran football administrator passed away at Parirenyatwa Hospital in Harare Thursday where he had been admitted after complaining of breathing problems, one of the symptoms of the coronavirus.
So many people have died of corona virus and yet the official figure remains at 53 – there is no doubt that Zanu PF is rigging the corona virus figures!
ZIMBABWE Senior Hospital Doctors (ZSHDA) members downed tools Thursday after the acting Health Ministry secretary said it would be insane for government to pay their salaries in foreign currency.
The industrial action has plunged the whole public health sector into a dark hole as nurses and junior doctors were already on strike demanding better salaries and working conditions.
The work stoppage by the public health workers also comes when Covid-19 infections and related deaths in Zimbabwe have steeply increased over the past two weeks with no tangible measures put in place by the government to flatten the curve.
It is laughable that the regime has a bloated and very well-equipped army, Police and CIO and had no problem deploying its security dogs to impose a curfew to stop threatened street protests. Meanwhile the country’s health care service has all but collapse after decades of being starved of funds.
The regime is failing to pay the nurses and doctors enough to cover their transport costs let alone other necessities. How are they expected to continue working under these impossible conditions?
Zanu PF has clearly no clue what to do to revive the country’s economy and yet the regime continues to impose its rule on the nation. Zanu must step down and allow the nation to move on. Zanu PF has held the nation to ransom for the last 40 years and this cannot be allowed to continue!
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